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Samsung Announces Lineup of Prominent Speakers for Free the Tv Challenge Developer Day

RIDGEFIELD PARK, NJ, August 25, 2010 – Samsung Electronics America, Inc., a market leader and award-winning innovator in consumer electronics, today announced the lineup of speakers for its upcoming Free the TV Developer Day, to be held on August 31 at the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose, CA. The speakers represent diverse interests across the connected TV ecosystem – content services, retail and technology – and underscore the deep industry support committed to driving the growth and potential of smart TVs.

Industry luminaries speaking at the event include:

· Boo-Keun Yoon, President, Samsung Electronics

· Steve Wozniak, Silicon Valley icon, inventor and philanthropist

· Tim Westergren, Founder and Chief Strategy Officer, Pandora

· Robert Stephens, Chief Technology Officer, Best Buy and founder of Geek Squad

· Chuck Pagano, Executive Vice President of Technology, ESPN

· Brian Cooley, Editor-at-Large, CNET

The Free the TV Developer Day is a core element of Samsung’s applications contest titled the Free the TV Challenge, which was launched on August 11, 2010. It seeks to help developers better understand Samsung’s smart TV platform and the ever expanding market potential for TV applications.

Samsung’s Free the TV Challenge is part of the company’s growing global commitment to galvanize developers around the world to design and create innovative smart TV apps. Samsung launched a similar challenge in Korea earlier this year, and will launch the third phase of the global challenge later this year in Europe. The US Challenge offers a prize value of half a million dollars. Successful developers that are able to create innovative TV apps based on the Samsung Apps platform also have the opportunity to reach audiences in about 120 countries, where the service has been introduced via Samsung Apps, the world's first HDTV-based application store.

“TV viewing is evolving from a singular, passive experience into a rich, interactive experience with the largest screen in the home,” said Tim Baxter, President of Samsung Electronics America. “As the pioneer in smart TVs, we want to encourage developers to free the TV by bringing new concepts, as well as existing apps from many platforms, to the TV. We’re thrilled that others in the industry share our vision and look forward to the start of a new TV evolution.”

Samsung Apps was built with the developer in mind and supports common web standards, like Javascript, XML and support for Adobe Flash Lite 3.1. It uses a single SDK for apps that runs across HDTVs, Blu-ray players and Blu-ray Home Theater systems and eliminates many of the development barriers by allowing applications to be written once and deployed across several platforms. This ultimately enables more versatile monetization for developers and a consistent, intuitive experience for consumers.

Interested parties can go to www.FreeTheTVChallenge.com to get more information on and register for the Free the TV Developer Day and Samsung’s Free the TV Challenge.

For more information about Samsung, including press releases, video content and product images, please visit: http://www.samsung.com/newsroom.